Lisa, you would have loved the old S.S. Independence. That poor ol' ship had been reconfigured so many times it's a wonder anything still worked. It was like a maze; getting anyplace on it was a challenge: hallways that dead-ended; stairs that went nowhere; doors that had been welded shut--it was the Winchester House of ships.

I cruised around the Hawaiian Islands on her in 1994; she had just come from an umpteen million dollar refurbishment and the joke of the cruise was, "well, that was a nice start." As we were going up the gangway, other passengers were coming back down muttering things like, "i'm not going anywhere on this tub." (not a good sign)

As it turned out, we got a 50% refund on our cruise fare due to "numerous inconveniences." In spit of it all, my son, who was 11 at the time and I had a ball--the most fun we've had together. . . .ever.